Superhero in the Alley (1×12)

BRENNAN: That’s what we have to figure out. We can take the skeleton in. Give you a report, maybe after next week.

BOOTH: No you don’t have to solve the whole case. Just tell me if I’m looking at a murder. Maybe, you know, pull a quick I.D.?

BRENNAN: Don’t use your charm smile on me.

BOOTH: What? It’s a mark of respect. That’s all.

We find out it’s a young man with a comic book found on him at the scene.

BOOTH: It’s Warren Granger, age 17.

BRENNAN: 17, small for his age.

BOOTH: Yeah. Well, he was homeschooled. G.E.D. obtained last summer. Mother and stepfather reported him missing from this very block two months ago. Hey, listen. Bones, you know, if you want, uh, sit this part out, hey I know you got some ancient Chinese bones waiting.

BRENNAN: No. I’m on this now.

BRENNAN: Looks like every other house in the neighborhood.

BOOTH: Every family has its secrets, Bones.

Well, ain’t that the truth.

WARREN’S STEPFATHER: He was always by himself. No friends. No enemies. Spent all his time up here with his comic books and toys. He was a lonely kid. Died before he even had a life. I really thought he had just run away. We tried. Tried to get him out of this place into some kind of real life. I even got him a job at the bowling alley. But… he just spent all his money on this… stuff.

BOOTH: Unbelievable. It’s quite the collection of comic books.

BRENNAN: Hodgins said that the cellulose mass was a graphic novel. He sent it to Angela for analysis and recovery.

BOOTH: Sweet.

BRENNAN: Sweet?

BOOTH: This is Batman number 127, featuring the hammer of the Thor. This is worth about 300 bucks.

BRENNAN: Booth, are you a nerd?

BOOTH: First of all, you mean “geek”. And no, I’m not. Okay? It’s quite normal for an American male to read comic books.

BRENNAN: I find it hard to believe you have anything in common with Warren Granger.

BOOTH: Oh, you mean isolated with an inner secret life? No. I’d say you were more like Warren.

Solid burn there, Booth. 10 points. lol

BRENNAN: Zack discovered some significant hairline parry fractures on the right and left ulnae. That’s arms.

BOOTH: I know ulna means forearm. I pay attention. I also know that parry fracture means that the kid fought back, Bones.

BRENNAN: Small stature, a geek, and he fought back.

BOOTH: Yeah. He also got thrown from a roof.

They find out that the victim was writing his own comics.

GOODMAN: As you know, being a writer yourself, Dr. Brennan, Warren Granger’s comic book could be infused with his real-life fears and conflicts.

BRENNAN: Especially in the case of an adolescent writer.

They go out into the field to talk to people who knew him.

BRENNAN: Do any of you people know Warren Granger?

Girl: Something happened to Warren, didn’t it?

ELLIS: Warren’s dead. He was murdered.

BOOTH: No. I never said anything about him being murdered. Neither did the press.

JEREMY: Well, obviously, if you’re the F.B.I., he was murdered. You guys don’t investigate people getting hit by a bus.

Meanwhile, the squints are learning more about the victim through his writing.

GOODMAN: Writer was in pain. And I don’t think it was purely the adolescent angst of the outsider. In fact, I’d go so far as to say it wasn’t mere psychological pain. He’s afraid of actual physical death.

ANGELA: Can you really pull all that information from a comic book?

GOODMAN: Absolutely. All writers reveal more of themselves than they intend on every page.

BOOTH: You know I gotta tell you, I never bought all that English 101 stuff. Sometimes a river is just a river.

BRENNAN: All due respect, but my writing, for example, is pure fiction.

GOODMAN: Dr.Brennan, I fear you reveal much more of your worldview in your writing than you realize.

BRENNAN: Such as?

GOODMAN: Such as “Archaeologists make good administrators because they enjoy tedium”.

ANGELA: Such as “Artists are doomed to a life of loneliness because they aren’t able to think beyond instant gratification”.

BOOTH: Such as, you know, F.B.I. guys are hot, and Angela here wants to have sex with me.

ANGELA: Yeah.

So much information being shared!!

Zack is reading comic books for the first time…

ZACK: Invulnerability, superstrength, heightened senses, telekinesis… I would love to have some of those powers.

BRENNAN: Why?

ZACK: I- I don’t really know. Is it an odd desire?

BRENNAN: Why fantasize? You’re smart.

ZACK: In some ways my intelligence is a handicap. Well, for one thing, I’m weird. For another, I tend to make people feel stupid, and they resent me for it.

BRENNAN: I suspect it’s the same for superpowers.

ZACK: I’ll clean the bones and try to match a weapon to the damage done.

BRENNAN: Which will make you a real hero in a real world.

The following scene ought to remind you of a much more recent episode…

BOOTH: You smell that?

BRENNAN: Yes, I do.

BOOTH: You know what that is, Bones?

BRENNAN: Wax, popcorn. Feet, deodorant.

BOOTH: That, is America, Bones.

BRENNAN: Keep your bowling ball in the car?

BOOTH: Oh, you know, I figure we ask a few questions about Warren Granger, maybe bowl a few frames… You know, nothing like a little sport to, uh, take the edge off of-

BRENNAN: This is not a sport.

BOOTH: How do you figure?

BRENNAN: There’s no physical benefit. So it’s really like golf. It’s not a sport, it’s an activity.

BOOTH: You know, could you please, Bones maybe just for once try not to piss everyone off around you?

BRENNAN: Yeah. Sorry. Are you good at this… sport?

BOOTH: Well, my average was over 200, less than 2 opens per game. One match I had 211 strikes out of 431 shots. 29 opens in 39 games.

BRENNAN: What does that mean?

BOOTH: Means I won some bowling awards.

BRENNAN: I won the Marshall H. Dixon Award for my paper on George John Romanes and physiological selection.

BOOTH: My God, it’s like we lead parallel lives.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

“This is Wanda, the bowler, at the bowling tournament, bowling…”

BRENNAN: You told her that her son didn’t tell her about being sick to make her feel better.

BOOTH: Mm-hmm.

BRENNAN: You don’t really believe that.

BOOTH: People don’t actually do that.

BRENNAN: So you told her to make her feel better?

BOOTH: Right.

BRENNAN: So you just did what you said people don’t do. I wonder why he didn’t tell his mother.

BOOTH: Well, maybe he was all caught up in the romance of being a dying superhero. You know, adolescent angst, all that.

BRENNAN: What do you really think?

BOOTH: The truth is I think the boy was looking to be a man. All on his own without any help. He was doing the best that he could.

BRENNAN: Heroes don’t whine about being sick.

BOOTH: Something like that. Poor kid.

Brennan starts thinking on what Booth said earlier.

BRENNAN: You said before that Warren reminded you of me. You think I’m just like him, that he hid from life by immersing himself in a fantasy world where he fought crime. And I do the same thing, only I don’t have superpowers. I… I have science.

BOOTH: No, Bones. You do fight crime. It’s not a fantasy. As far as any normal person is concerned, you do have superpowers.

BRENNAN: You’re just saying that to me.

BOOTH: No, I don’t do that.

BRENNAN: Yes, you do. You lied to Warren Granger’s mother to make her feel better. That seems to be your superpower…This is an arm bone. Has anyone we’ve seen on this case been favoring her arm?

BOOTH: Not that I’ve noticed.

BRENNAN: That’s because you’re not an anthropologist… with superpowers.

BOOTH: Ha. That’s good.

They figure out who Warren was protecting and why.

BOOTH: That’s not that damsel part that matters. It’s the distress that appealed to the kid. You know? I mean, look. It wasn’t about the sex or the romance. It never was.

BRENNAN: He wanted to make a difference in the world before he died. I told you he was more like you than me.

B&B confront the married couple at the bowling alley. The wife defends her husband.

BRENNAN: Well, Warren was right-handed, so the wound would be on your husband’s left arm.

LUCY: Oh my God.

BOOTH: Bones.

Brennan approaches Ted and hit his upper left arm with her elbow. A blood stain appears.

LUCY: No!

BOOTH: I got him. I got him. I got him. All right. Aw, hell, Bones. Looks like you opened up an old wound there. All right let’s go. You know what? You’re under arrest. I really hate a wife beater. I really do. Almost as much as I hate someone who kills a dying kid.

They speak to Lucy.

BRENNAN: Warren wanted to rescue you.

LUCY: Oh, my God.

BOOTH: He probably just wanted to intimidate your husband, stop him from attacking you.

Back to the cemetery, Booth approaches the casket. He takes off the Sharpshooter medal that was on his suit jacket and places it on the casket.

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13 thoughts on “Superhero in the Alley (1×12)”

Great review bnb!
I was never a big fan of this episode, but I noticed right away the similarity of the bowling alley scene with Change in the Game! Loved it!!
Brennan smelled “Wax, popcorn. Feet, deodorant.” in season 1. What did she smell in season 6?
Booth:Don’t you love that smell? Gladiators’ amphitheater.
Brennan:I can discern fried food, sweat, dirty feet, cigarette smoke, chewing gum.
Max: And murder.
🙂
-Booth putting his sharpshooter medal on the casket was very touching.
B&B look lovely together! Love Brennan’s “clunky” necklace in this pic-
At first I did not like Booth’s hairstyle in season 1, but it grew on me, and I was sad to see it change in season 2. Brennan’s hair did not change much until the bangs in season 6.

One thing that stands out, that I didn’t remember, is how B&B both saw each other in the victim. Booth picked up on that Warren was a super smart, yet introverted person. Brennan saw Boothy qualities in Warren, that he went out and made a difference and fought for what he thought was right.

I think GGW would say that they are building their world around each other. Perhaps Sweets would say they are creating a surrogate relationship.

I’m one who always believed that they loved each other from the beginning, which I think Hart confirmed in a recent tweet replying to a question about whether it was love at first sight for Booth and Brennan “I do concur. Their very cells loved each other long before their big brains and hearts became aware of it.”

I do concur. Their very cells loved each other long before their big brains and hearts became aware of it.

– If B&B loved each other from the beginning, then other people in their lives (including Hannah) were second choices, or consolation prizes if you will (yes, I’m still steamed about Booth telling Brennan that Hannah wasn’t a consolation prize, when she so obviously was)

– I really like how Hart says that they BOTH have big brains and BOTH have big hearts.

“I really like how Hart says that they BOTH have big brains and BOTH have big hearts.”

Yes I agree – because I’m from the camp that B&B really were very much alike at their cores. They both identified with this poor kid.
Cute part of this episode….is when Brennan tells him ‘don’t use your charm smile’. See – even then he was getting to her!

“If B&B loved each other from the beginning, then other people in their lives (including Hannah) were second choices, or consolation prizes if you will (yes, I’m still steamed about Booth telling Brennan that Hannah wasn’t a consolation prize, when she so obviously was)”

Hannah was consolation/rebound, end of story. She was a poor Brennan-wanna be. Just because Booth said she ‘wasn’t a consolation prize’ doesn’t make it so. Kinda like Brennan saying to Angela in Hero in the Hold, ‘I’m not in love with Booth’. They both said things out loud trying to convince themselves of it. Neither able to face the realities of their situations. Booth was in MAJOR denial during the whole Hannah story. He went to extremes trying to convince himself of something that just wasn’t. As H said in the end…..she always told him she wasn’t the marrying kind and she knew it would end. He just was covering his ears and eyes and living in a different world thinking he couldn’t have Brennan.

his wasn’t an episode that I really remembered, but I did enjoy rewatching it.

– Chuckled when early in the episode Booth offers that she can sit this case out so she can work on her old Chinese bones and she rushes to tell him “No. I’m on this now”

– I loved Cullen and am so sorry he wasn’t around longer on Bones. I wonder if the actor died or retired and that’s why he wasn’t on anymore?

– I also loved Goodman…he was funny in this episode

– It was very amusing that everyone else knew that Brennan was revealing things about herself in her writing, but she didn’t get it

– I thought Booth was going to tell Brennan that he was Andy Lister, but instead he said something about being a hot FBI agent that Angela wants to sleep with…ewwww. Need to get that image out of my head!

– Even this early on, Brennan wants so much to understand what Booth is thinking. I think she does learn from Booth, but in these early seasons it was so well done that it was a joy to watch (unlike the clunky “teach Brennan a lesson” scenes we got in later seasons).

– Booth learns from Brennan as well, and then they compliment one another in this exchange:

“BRENNAN: You said before that Warren reminded you of me. You think I’m just like him, that he hid from life by immersing himself in a fantasy world where he fought crime. And I do the same thing, only I don’t have superpowers. I… I have science.

BOOTH: No, Bones. You do fight crime. It’s not a fantasy. As far as any normal person is concerned, you do have superpowers.

BRENNAN: You’re just saying that to me.

BOOTH: No, I don’t do that.

BRENNAN: Yes, you do. You lied to Warren Granger’s mother to make her feel better. That seems to be your superpower.”

I liked how the squint squad all related to the art of the episode in their own way. It was like the ghost/skull episode but without the weirdness of shooting from the skull’s point of view. Booth and Brennan obviously saw each other’s good points in the victim and his comic work, but Angela related to him as a fellow artist. The usually “clueless about social cues” squints saw themselves in Brennan’s book.

Speaking of, I had forgotten how much they hinted about Booth and Angela in the beginning. Was this just a red herring? Did they ever really have plans to “go there”? Was it just kind of to make Brennan jealous?

“Speaking of, I had forgotten how much they hinted about Booth and Angela in the beginning. Was this just a red herring? Did they ever really have plans to “go there”? Was it just kind of to make Brennan jealous?”

Angela was always portrayed as the wild child looking for fun. Booth being a handsome eligible bachelor, it was normal that she would take notice. But I think the thing was that Angela sensed the B&B thing right away. Although I think HH had said in the past that B&B were not necessarily gonna be an item, until he saw the chemistry between the actors that eventually portrayed them. So the early writing, could have been more noncommittal in a sense as to where they were going with the B&B relationship.

Funny that I’ve never minded in the early years Angela pointing out to Brennan how hot Booth was or how she’d ride that train…etc. It wasn’t until that roller derby episode where she went out of her way to kiss him and the s9 episode where she wanted to ‘hug it out’ after the bachelorette party where I thought it was totally weird…..and inappropriate to make the comment she did at the time.

Cullen and Goodman were gotten rid of because the series became ‘less serious’ after s1 – I believe that was according to HH. So they brought in the soap opera boss! LOL

“– It was very amusing that everyone else knew that Brennan was revealing things about herself in her writing, but she didn’t get it”

Yeah – she wasn’t at a place where she could admit her inner self was coming out when she wrote. She was still ‘hiding’ behind her writing.

“– I thought Booth was going to tell Brennan that he was Andy Lister, but instead he said something about being a hot FBI agent that Angela wants to sleep with…ewwww. Need to get that image out of my head!”

Not near as bad as the picture of Cam in Booth’s bed that I could never rid myself of – eww!!!! LOL

I never read Kathy Reich’s books, but a girl I work with said she tried, but found them boring!

“Hannah was consolation/rebound, end of story. She was a poor Brennan-wanna be. Just because Booth said she ‘wasn’t a consolation prize’ doesn’t make it so. ”
RIght on with that NWChic! Booth was trying to move on & be happy after Brennan rejected him in Parts, and then left for Maluku, but WE know, lol, she was just a rebound, available to Booth when he was most vulnerable.

“Yeah DB played it perfectly when they had their reunion and hugged. You could see at that moment, he 100% realized he’d never be over Brennan. He was like, “Oh crap, now what?!”.

I’ve read a few and I like them, kinda what I’d say is an easy read. The character is not at all like the TV character imo. Except she is a forensic anthropologist and she does end up having a relationship with the police guy she works with. She is divorced with a daughter…ex hubby is in her life too.

Thanks NWChic. I figured the characters were different somewhat but the book sounds very different!! I’m kind of picky about what novels I like so I might not get into them. I prefer the fictional Agent Andy and Kathy 😍 I wonder if there is an actual draft of any books that Bones supposedly wrote. Did the prop department ever make a real one? Did the writing staff (Hart and co.) ever write up at least a chapter or two of a novel just in case they wanted to use it in an episode? I can’t remember if they’ve ever said…..?

I was thinking about trying her new novel “Two Nights” but the reviews have been fairly lukewarm. One person on Amazon said that they almost couldn’t read it because the main character’s name is “Sunday Night” and I had to chuckle at that…it seems like a stupid name to me as well.

Also, this is yet another character who had a tragic, scarring childhood. I guess that is the norm in fiction because it gives the character emotional depth, drama, etc…but it wears on me. I think I’ll give her new one a pass. I never read any of the Temperance Brennan novels either. I agree with bb…I prefer the TV show version!

Does anyone plan to read Hart’s novel? It comes out on Aug. 8 I believe. I tried to reserve it at my library but they don’t have it available (normally upcoming books are in the system and you can reserve them prior to publication) and I’m not sure I’m willing to spend $12 or whatever to see what Hart can do as a novelist.